Does acquisition of nuclear weapons by security rivals increase their level of conventional militarised conflict? Some recent theoretical and quantitative work has supported the ‘stability-instability paradox’, the proposition that while nuclear weapons deter nuclear war, they may also provide the conditions for nuclear-armed rivals to increase conventional military conflict with each other.

This seminar will explore how informal life politics work in Inner Mongolia and Mongolia. It will examine how people in these regions connect to each other through informal life politics, how they deal with real-word problems by creating locally-grounded knowledge, and how formal political systems respond to informal life politics. Based on participatory action research conducted between 2014 and 2017, it will present two main findings: first, the critical role of local, personal networks in informal life politics; and second, the negative effect on informal life politics of the politically sensitive atmosphere in Inner Mongolia.